As I
Neared The Beach, There, In The Water, Up To Her Waist, Dead In
Front Of Me, Appeared A Woman.
How was I to stop that comber on
whose back I was?
It looked like a dead woman. The board weighed
seventy-five pounds, I weighed a hundred and sixty-five. The added
weight had a velocity of fifteen miles per hour. The board and I
constituted a projectile. I leave it to the physicists to figure
out the force of the impact upon that poor, tender woman. And then
I remembered my guardian angel, Ford. "Steer with your legs!" rang
through my brain. I steered with my legs, I steered sharply,
abruptly, with all my legs and with all my might. The board sheered
around broadside on the crest. Many things happened simultaneously.
The wave gave me a passing buffet, a light tap as the taps of waves
go, but a tap sufficient to knock me off the board and smash me down
through the rushing water to bottom, with which I came in violent
collision and upon which I was rolled over and over. I got my head
out for a breath of air and then gained my feet. There stood the
woman before me. I felt like a hero. I had saved her life. And
she laughed at me. It was not hysteria. She had never dreamed of
her danger. Anyway, I solaced myself, it was not I but Ford that
saved her, and I didn't have to feel like a hero. And besides, that
leg-steering was great. In a few minutes more of practice I was
able to thread my way in and out past several bathers and to remain
on top my breaker instead of going under it.
"To-morrow," Ford said, "I am going to take you out into the blue
water."
I looked seaward where he pointed, and saw the great smoking combers
that made the breakers I had been riding look like ripples. I don't
know what I might have said had I not recollected just then that I
was one of a kingly species. So all that I did say was, "All right,
I'll tackle them to-morrow."
The water that rolls in on Waikiki Beach is just the same as the
water that laves the shores of all the Hawaiian Islands; and in
ways, especially from the swimmer's standpoint, it is wonderful
water. It is cool enough to be comfortable, while it is warm enough
to permit a swimmer to stay in all day without experiencing a chill.
Under the sun or the stars, at high noon or at midnight, in
midwinter or in midsummer, it does not matter when, it is always the
same temperature - not too warm, not too cold, just right. It is
wonderful water, salt as old ocean itself, pure and crystal-clear.
When the nature of the water is considered, it is not so remarkable
after all that the Kanakas are one of the most expert of swimming
races.
So it was, next morning, when Ford came along, that I plunged into
the wonderful water for a swim of indeterminate length. Astride of
our surf-boards, or, rather, flat down upon them on our stomachs, we
paddled out through the kindergarten where the little Kanaka boys
were at play. Soon we were out in deep water where the big smokers
came roaring in. The mere struggle with them, facing them and
paddling seaward over them and through them, was sport enough in
itself. One had to have his wits about him, for it was a battle in
which mighty blows were struck, on one side, and in which cunning
was used on the other side - a struggle between insensate force and
intelligence. I soon learned a bit. When a breaker curled over my
head, for a swift instant I could see the light of day through its
emerald body; then down would go my head, and I would clutch the
board with all my strength. Then would come the blow, and to the
onlooker on shore I would be blotted out. In reality the board and
I have passed through the crest and emerged in the respite of the
other side. I should not recommend those smashing blows to an
invalid or delicate person. There is weight behind them, and the
impact of the driven water is like a sandblast. Sometimes one
passes through half a dozen combers in quick succession, and it is
just about that time that he is liable to discover new merits in the
stable land and new reasons for being on shore.
Out there in the midst of such a succession of big smoky ones, a
third man was added to our party, one Freeth. Shaking the water
from my eyes as I emerged from one wave and peered ahead to see what
the next one looked like, I saw him tearing in on the back of it,
standing upright on his board, carelessly poised, a young god
bronzed with sunburn. We went through the wave on the back of which
he rode. Ford called to him. He turned an airspring from his wave,
rescued his board from its maw, paddled over to us and joined Ford
in showing me things. One thing in particular I learned from
Freeth, namely, how to encounter the occasional breaker of
exceptional size that rolled in. Such breakers were really
ferocious, and it was unsafe to meet them on top of the board. But
Freeth showed me, so that whenever I saw one of that calibre rolling
down on me, I slid off the rear end of the board and dropped down
beneath the surface, my arms over my head and holding the board.
Thus, if the wave ripped the board out of my hands and tried to
strike me with it (a common trick of such waves), there would be a
cushion of water a foot or more in depth, between my head and the
blow.
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